{"id":106128,"date":"2024-07-11T14:34:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T20:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=106128"},"modified":"2024-07-11T16:31:49","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T22:31:49","slug":"a-lying-liar-who-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/07\/a-lying-liar-who-lies.html","title":{"rendered":"A lying liar who lies!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>
The White House, as viewed from the Washington Monument
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This will seem to some to be a political post and, thus, a violation of my contention that I no longer publish my political opinions. \u00a0But it\u2019s not. \u00a0Please note that I endorse no presidential candidate here, and that I take no stance whatever on the question of whether Mr. Donald J. Trump is a threat to the Constitution of the United States and to our democratic republic or whether, instead, he is God\u2019s personally-anointed choice to lead America back to greatness.<\/p>\n
I will say, however, that I think it highly likely, as of today, that Mr. Trump will be returning to the White House in January 2025. \u00a0(Of course, things might be very different if Joe Biden were still alive.) \u00a0But that\u2019s merely a statement of probable fact, not an endorsement.<\/p>\n
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This was Thomas Jefferson\u2019s house, and Abraham Lincoln\u2019s house, and Ronald Reagan\u2019s house, before it was Donald Trump\u2019s and Joe Biden\u2019s. And, in at most a few years, it will be someone else\u2019s. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Back on American Independence Day<\/a>, I called attention, as follows, to a recently-published article:<\/p>\n
I also want to share here another Deseret News<\/em> article from the invaluable Jacob Hess<\/a>. \u00a0Not infrequently, I encounter comments from politically-left-leaning secular critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> in which they claim, or insinuate, that American members of the Church are uniquely faithful to Mr. Donald Trump because aspects of the doctrine or practices or attitudes associated with the Restoration make them Trumpists by nature. \u00a0It turns out, though, that the data seem clearly to indicate that American Latter-day Saints are not<\/em> uniquely devoted to Mr. Trump. \u00a0Indeed, quite the contrary: \u00a0As a matter of fact, given their predominantly conservative and Republican proclivities, they appear to be uniquely resistant<\/em> to Mr. Trump: \u00a0\u201c\u2018I just can\u2019t bring myself to support either candidate\u2019: Why so many American Latter-day Saints feel politically homeless:\u00a0More than ever, people of faith are heading into the U.S. election without any major candidate they can support in good conscience. A deeper dive on why Latter-day Saints seem especially inclined to resist the two major options\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Daniel Schwen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n*
** *Rather predictably, a poster at a rather predictable place accused Dr. Hess of having misrepresented the data. \u00a0In fact, he accused Dr. Hess \u2014 and, entirely predictably, for the act of having linked to Dr. Hess\u2019s article, he accused me<\/em> \u2014 of having deliberately lied. \u00a0(To be precise, of \u201clying for the Lord,\u201d as we Latter-day Saints are, it seems, trained to do.) \u00a0Dr. Hess has now responded at that same rather predictable place:<\/p>\n"
Hello \u2013 a friend let me know some question had been raised here about the accuracy of my representation of the AEI data. I took the chance to reach out to survey director Dan Cox, to make sure my reporting was faithfully representing their findings \u2013 and to ask if there was a better link to embed in my article. Here was his response:<\/p>\n*
** \u201cThose figures are accurate\u2026 I don\u2019t see any problems with what you wrote. Unfortunately, there is no link I can provide where we break out the poll results for LDS respondents. This is fairly typical. We can\u2019t publish results for every demographic group.\u201d<\/p>\n
** You\u2019ll notice my report focused on numbers of people expressing hesitancy towards both candidates. You\u2019ve pointed out it\u2019s surprising how many members of the Church are representing the former president \u2013 which is fair, but not contradictory to what I raise.<\/p>\n
** There are two (honest) questions I\u2019d raise in response to your suggestion that \u201cone should never trust an apologist to accurately represent a source.\u201d<\/p>\n
** (1) Could a more parsimonious explanation be that two people could look at different data sources and honesty come to different conclusions? (versus presuming that anyone who holds a particular view is \u201clying\u201d)<\/p>\n
** *(2) Given that you appear to hold that view towards me (and others), I wonder what has led to this position \u2013 hurt, pain, misunderstanding \u2013 and how you think that pain can heal between someone like you and someone like me? That\u2019s something I think about a lot \u2013 and would welcome your thoughts.<\/p>\nI\u2019d be open to talking about this further, if you want to reach out to my email, jhess@deseretnews.com<\/a>. I won\u2019t be coming back to this site to see a response \u2013 but wanted to share this clarification. I don\u2019t personally consider this a place where a conversation about faith is taking place that is truly open to all perspectives, including one that attests to the gospel\u2019s truthfulness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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The official White House portrait of Abraham Lincoln, America\u2019s first Republican president*
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
** *But Dr. Hess and I aren\u2019t the only people who pretend to have noticed a certain degree of Latter-day Saint resistance to Mr. Trump. \u00a0In this context, I\u2019ll leave completely unmentioned the striking opposition to Mr. Trump of such life-long Republican and conservative stalwarts as Senator Mitt Romney (UT); former Senator Jeff Flake (AZ); the former Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers; retired federal judge Tom Griffith, of the United States Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit; former Utah Governor Gary Herbert; current Utah Governor Spencer Cox; and former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullen. \u00a0Their opposition is striking but, in a sense, merely anecdotal. \u00a0No, instead I\u2019ll point to the concurring voices of several other liars who claim to have observed much the same thing:<\/p>\nPolitico<\/em> (2020): \u00a0\u201cMormons rejected Trump as blasphemous. Now he likely can\u2019t win without them. \u00a0Latter-day Saints had been among the most reliably Republican voting blocs \u2014 until Trump took over the party.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
Financial Review<\/em> (2021): \u00a0\u201cThe church that turned from Trump:\u00a0In the past few years, Mormons have become a subject of fascination for their surprising resistance to Trumpism.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
American Enterprise Institute, Survey Center on American Life (2023): \u00a0\u201cTrump\u2019s Problem with Mormon Voters is Getting Worse\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
Deseret News<\/em> (2023): \u00a0\u201cWill Trump have a Latter-day Saint voter problem yet again? \u00a0New polls show Trump struggling with Latter-day Saints, Utahns\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
KJZZ (2024): \u00a0\u201cOver half of Mormons have negative views of Trump. They could be an important Arizona swing vote\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
Manifestly, all of these people are lying because they are under my malignant influence. \u00a0And it\u2019s not only writers and journalists but, astoundingly, the citizens of Utah who are lying. \u00a0Examine the voting percentages in Utah presidential elections in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020<\/a>. \u00a0Pay particular attention to the percentage of Republican votes during those last two elections, when Mr. Donald J. Trump was the Republican presidential candidate. \u00a0Examine the Utah caucus results for 2016<\/a>, when Mr. Trump was on the ballot along with Ted Cruz and John Kasich. \u00a0Question: \u00a0Would Mr. Trump have won the 2016 Republican nomination had all states voted the same way that Utah did? \u00a0Obviously, Utah voters were lying!<\/p>\n
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This is somebody\u2019s office, but I can never remember the person\u2019s name. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
However, my notorious personal depravity is of comparatively small significance, globally speaking. \u00a0There are, after all, perhaps two or three dozen people on the planet who are arguably even worse than I am. \u00a0And here\u2019s something to make you shiver in your boots on even the hottest day. \u00a0It comes \u2014 need one even ask? \u2014 from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122: \u00a0\u201cChurches offer relief in the wake of Hurricane Beryl:\u00a0Faith leaders provide emergency response in the Caribbean and Texas in the wake of the hurricane\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
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\u00a0 This will seem to some to be a political post and, thus, a violation of my contention that I no longer publish my political opinions. \u00a0But it\u2019s not. \u00a0Please note that I endorse no presidential candidate here, and that I take no stance whatever on the question of whether Mr. Donald J. Trump is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":21679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1697,9638,2905,788,719,782],"class_list":["post-106128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arizona","tag-biden","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-trump","tag-utah"],"yoast_head":"\nA lying liar who lies!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" This will seem to some to be a political post and, thus, a violation of my contention that I no longer publish my political opinions. \u00a0But it's\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/07\/a-lying-liar-who-lies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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